Matt Vance

Guest writer

Matt vance is a New Zealand writer and passionate sailor. He has been a lecturer and guide on numerous expeditions to the outposts of the Southern Ocean, from the subantarctic islands to the Antarctic continent.

The Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)

Greed is the thing with feathers: inside the world of natural history thieves

Matt Vance reviews an investigation into "the freaks, maniacs and the greed-addled madmen" who obsessively collect, plunder and steal bird specimens.

By Matt Vance | 19th June, 2018

A Sooty Albatros in full flight at Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands group. (Photo by Ross Land/Getty Images)

Books: The Monday Extract – The Time Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves Shot and Killed an Albatross

There may be one place on Earth more depressing and extreme than Antarctica - Sub-Antarctica, those cold, forsaken islands way down south.

By Matt Vance | 16th November, 2015